Black ink tattoo on the upper back reading Love above a heart containing basketball seam lines, with Basketball written beneath in lettering.

Love basketball heart on upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows the word Love above a heart outlined in black, with curved basketball seam lines drawn inside it, and the word Basketball below. The linework is bold and solid in black ink, with the lettering in a loose, brushed script style. The design is centred on pale skin across the upper back, with the top of the neck visible at the top of the frame.

Lettering Back Love Heart Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ball had been Dennis's long before it belonged to the community centre, and the seams had gone soft and grey from years of his thumbs. Nobody on Harrow Road had asked him to stop bringing it on Thursday nights. You wedged it under your arm while you swept the lino, the way you'd carry a loaf home from the bakers.

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The new lad, Kieran, turned up with his mum's car keys still in his pocket and a sulk on his face. He'd been dropped from the under-fifteens for being too slow to close a gap. Dennis didn't offer him advice. He stood at the free-throw line, took a shot that clanged off the rim, and waited until the boy had fetched the ball and taken his own go.

Kieran missed three times. On the fourth he didn't look at the hoop at all. He turned the ball in his hands under the strip lights and studied the curved lines across it, the ones that met in the middle like the point of a heart. 'That's daft,' he said. 'Who draws a heart on a ball?' Dennis laughed until he had to sit down on the bench.

Years later, Kieran came back with a van full of cones and a daughter who wanted to learn the crossover. He sketched the shape on the back of a clipboard and handed the pen to her. The old ball had gone to the bin with the rest of the worn kit, but he still traced those seams with his finger whenever he needed to remember which way the game was meant to go.